


A Million Little Lies

by cnroth



Series: Cardigan [1]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Cheating, Drug Use, F/M, First Time, Pre-Canon, Rare Pairings, but it’s still teenage sexy times, it doesn’t get too explicit, one is 17 the other is 18, so if you don’t like that don’t read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:41:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26533780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cnroth/pseuds/cnroth
Summary: They’re not supposed to be together. They’re not supposed to be a lot of things. Children of Starfleet admirals should be better than this. But in secret, they can set aside those impossible expectations and find brief, stolen moments of truth.
Relationships: Tom Paris/Phoebe Janeway
Series: Cardigan [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932271
Comments: 14
Kudos: 12





	A Million Little Lies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Curator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curator/gifts).



> _“I liked my room, though. It was quiet in there. People would leave me alone. I'd keep the door locked, read, play games. I lost my virginity in that room. Seventeen. Parents were away for the weekend.”_
> 
> —Tom Paris, “Threshold”
> 
> _”When you are young, they assume you know nothing.”_
> 
> —Taylor Swift, “Cardigan”

The fog is thick in the city tonight, which is good because it means I’m less likely to be seen. As far as Mom knows, I'm staying over at my friend Amy’s house in San Francisco for the weekend. As far as Amy’s parents know, I’m at a concert in San Jose with Amy and her friend Inez.

Obviously, that’s a lie.

I push a lock of auburn hair back from my face and adjust the hood obscuring my head—a precaution that’s probably unnecessary on a night like tonight, but Janeways are just as recognizable as Paris’ by anyone with ties to Starfleet. This close to headquarters, there could be any number of people who’d take notice. I can’t risk being identified.

If my parents ever found out I’m sneaking around with Owen Paris’ son, they’d kill me.

The crazy thing is, it’s been going on for three months—ever since we became friends at some stupid, fancy Starfleet event our families had to go to for First Contact Day. Mostly, we just talk over comm, or send each other messages, though we have managed to plan a few secret meetings. 

Officially, he’s going out with Admiral Hayes’ daughter, but she’s boring as hell. It’s all for appearances, honestly. Tom’s dad is a micromanaging dickhead, and he’ll do anything to add more shine to the Paris name. Clemencia Hayes is the perfect specimen of what a future Starfleet officer should be.

Like I said, she’s boring as hell.

And Tom likes to have fun.

He’s waiting at the back door when I arrive. The porch light is off, so he whispers, “Phoebe?” 

“It’s me,” I reply, pushing my hood back.

In the faint moonlight diffusing through the fog, I can make out tousled hair and an athletic figure dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. An achingly big smile immediately takes over my face, but then his hands are under my sweatshirt and his lips are sucking on mine and he’s pressing me against the siding on his house.

This weekend, his parents are out of town, his goody-good oldest sister is on Mars, and we will finally cross a line neither of us has crossed before. 

Against my stomach, I can feel the evidence that he wants this as much as I do. 

When he steps back, he tugs my hood up over my head. “Moira’s probably in her room, but we should still be careful.”

I nod.

“You sure you’re ready for this?”

His sweetness makes heat flare in my cheeks. “Yes.” I trace a finger down his chest and stomach, hooking into his waistband. “I’m ready.”

His irises, already darkened by the night, go black. “Come on,” he murmurs, then takes my hand and leads me inside.

The moment his room door closes, we start stripping away our clothes. His eyes widen when my shirt hits the floor, and go wider still when my bra follows soon after, but his hands hesitate on my ribs.

“It’s okay,” I tell him, leading his hands to my breasts. “I want you to touch me.”

He lets out a shuddering breath, thumbs slowly circling my nipples. When they harden, he gasps.

I chuckle. “I guess guys don’t ever touch their chests when they masturbate, huh?”

His brow creases a little, but his eyes are still glued to my breasts. “Uh, no? Why would I do that?”

In reply, I slide my hands up his bare torso and circle his nipples with first one finger, then two. When they harden, I start to tease them the way I’ve done my own hundreds of times.

“Oh,” he breathes, eyes slipping closed.

I wonder how they would feel in my mouth.

Leaning closer, I flick my tongue over one nipple. He sucks in a breath. I close my lips around it and suck gently.

“Ohhh,” he sighs. His palms engulf my breasts and squeeze a bit too tightly.

“Not so hard,” I say.

“Sorry.” There’s a hint of embarrassment in his voice, but the pressure on my breasts eases to a gentle massage.

“Yes,” I whisper, crossing over to kiss his other nipple. “Just like that.”

My hands wander down to the waistband of his jeans, fumbling a bit with the button before I finally manage to pop them open and push them down his hips. “Can I touch you?” 

“Yes, please,” he practically begs, and when I slide my hand into his boxers he has to bite back a moan. “Phe,” he gasps as my fingers curl around soft skin and my thumb swipes across the tip. “Oh, God, I wanna fuck.”

I lift my eyes to his—thin rings of blue around wide, black pupils—and grin. “Then let’s fuck.”

* * *

His t-shirt is soft and roomy, armholes hanging down to my elbows and the bottom hem just barely long enough to come between my ass and the floor. Above our heads, the window is open to vent the smoke from his horgl, though given how nice the Paris home is, I imagine the environmental systems won’t have any problem filtering out the smell.

Tom and I sit on the floor, shoulders pressed together, taking turns with the snakeleaf his parents don’t even suspect he has. He has one arm draped over my bent-up knee, fingertips drawing figure eights around a birthmark on the side of my calf. The sweat has evaporated from our skin in the cool, salt air, but I’m certain my cheeks and chest are still as flushed as his are. 

I take a hit and pass the horgl over, tilting my head back to blow smoke towards the window. He does the same, and when our eyes catch, our faces split with wide grins.

“Still can’t stop smiling, huh?” he asks, both pleasure and pride apparent in his voice.

I nudge him with my shoulder. “Neither can you.”

“Nope.” He leans closer, our noses brushing, his blue eyes so close they blur and start to merge. “You were amazing.” 

I’m about to question this, because the reality is we were both a bumbling, awkward mess. But then his lips touch mine, tongue slipping between and curling around my own. Damn, he sure does make it hard to argue. 

The bittersweet taste of an illicit drug on our shared breaths is a distant reminder of how fucked up this whole thing is. How dangerous. How temporary. In the known story of Tom Paris, I don’t even exist. I can’t paint him pictures or give him anything to hold onto—just memories he can’t share with anyone else. I don’t have a place in his public narrative, nor does he have a place in mine. How can anything good come from such a shameful lie? 

I swat at the thought like a mosquito in my mind and comb my fingers into Tom’s messy blonde hair, pulling him closer still. Quiet, involuntary sounds escape from the backs of our throats, and I can’t make myself stop. 

God, I want to fuck again.

How long do guys have to wait before they can get it up a second time? I don’t remember.

Maybe I should have paid more attention in my health classes.

His hands slide up my shirt—actually, _his_ shirt—and palm my breasts. I arch into the touch. I’m suddenly very aware of how slick my thighs are.

His tongue retracts. “Do you want me to go down?” he murmurs against my lips.

“Fuck yes,” I breathe.

And there goes his t-shirt, once again, to the floor. I lay beside it, not sure what to expect but desperate for it to happen. 

It’s immediately clear Tom knows nothing about female anatomy, though I don’t tell him that. Instead, I give him direction—“a little further up,” “slow down a bit,” “not so hard”—until it’s just right and I have to bite my lip to keep from making any noise that could alert his sister or the neighbors to our indiscretion. The pressure is building and I’m squeezing my eyes closed so tightly I see colors I’ve never seen before in my entire life.

It takes an embarrassingly long time to come, but I refuse to pile onto the bullshit we both give and take with our families by faking here, too. What we have is made up of a million little secrets and lies, but it’s the only truth we know.

When I finally do finish, I’m exhausted, but I don’t regret a thing. I lie here, panting and grinning, wanting so badly to shout about how incredible I feel.

Tom hovers over me. “Good?”

“Very good.” I lift my mouth to his, licking inside, and taste myself for the first time. I’m salty, like the sea. “You’re a fast learner.”

He gives his trademark, flirtatious smile. “You’re a good teacher.”

Once I catch my breath, Tom pulls me up to sit beside him like before. He takes the horgl from where he’d abandoned it on the floor, refills the reservoir, and offers it to me. “Have you heard back from CalArts yet?”

I take a hit. “Nope. Still waitlisted.” 

“You applied to other places, though, right? What about one of them?”

“Pratt, RISD, and Berlin said no. NYU and SAIC, also waitlisted.” I pass the horgl. “They’re all really competitive, though. I’m not getting my hopes up.”

“You’ll get in somewhere,” he assures me. “I know you will. You’re the best artist I know.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Do you know a lot of artists?”

“Well, no, but it doesn’t matter.” He gives me a sweet smile. “You’re amazing. They’d be stupid not to take you.”

Tom knows jack shit about art or art school, but for whatever reason his words still make me feel better. I lace my fingers with his and rest my head on his shoulder. “Thanks. I’m guessing your dad still hasn’t budged on letting you join the Navy?”

He snorts. “Dad? Change his mind?” His head thumps against the wall behind him. “Fat fucking chance. As far as he’s concerned, I’m joining Starfleet and that’s that.”

“What if you don’t get in?”

“Not an option. He says I’m too good of a pilot not to be in Starfleet, that I’d be throwing my life away if I did anything else.” 

“So what? It’s your life, not his.”

Tom’s fingers trace the seams of the horgl, finding the places where one part meets another. “He says I’m too young to understand it now, but I’ll thank him later.”

I shake my head. “Parents are the fucking worst. All they ever see when they look at us is kids, as if we’re just little versions of them. Fuck that.”

He takes a hit and blows smoke. “You can say that again.”

“Well,” I say, “at least you’ve got a plan. I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t get in anywhere. I guess this is what I get for not applying earlier, but...” He sets the horgl in my open hand, and I stare down at it. “If I have to stay at home for four months with nothing to do, listening to Mom go on about Dad and Kathryn and the war, blah blah blah… ugh. You might have to visit me in prison for murdering her.”

Tom laughs. “Yeah, I know the feeling. Maybe if we both go to prison, we can bunk together.”

I snort. “Sounds like a plan.”

For a while, we sit in silence, passing the horgl back and forth until the reservoir is empty. He asks if I want more, but I say no, and he puts his stash back into hiding while I close the window and draw the curtains together.

When we turn back to each other, he just stands there for a while, looking me up and down, biting his lip. “How...” His throat bobs. “How much longer until you have to leave?”

I check the chronometer by his bed. “Half an hour. I told Amy I’d meet her at the transport station at twelve-thirty. We’re supposed to be back at her parents’ house by one.”

A coy smile slides across his face. “Sounds like we have time for another round.”

My own lips curl up as I step closer to him. I run my hands up his chest, around his shoulders, and back down until they’re teasing the waistband of his boxers. “That might be cutting it kind of close. I have to be dressed and out the door in thirty minutes.”

His hands move around my hips, cup my ass, then make their way up my bare back. “Now that we know what we’re doing, we can be more efficient.”

I don’t want to be efficient. I want to stay here, take our time, hold each other when we’re done, and fall asleep in his arms. “What if your sister is out there and I can’t leave right away?” I argue, though my hands are already inside his boxers, palming his ass. 

Because the truth is that, in this moment, I don’t give a singular fuck about being smart and responsible. I don’t care if it’s risky to spend our last minutes together tangled up in each other. I don’t care if it makes me late, if it leads to us getting caught, if it ruins our reputations forever.

The way I feel right now, I’d willingly open myself up to all of my parents’ rage just to have this boy one more time.

His mouth finds my earlobe, drags it between his teeth, and flicks it with his tongue, making me gasp and writhe against him. “Do you want to get dressed and head out to the back porch?” he murmurs, his warm breath tickling my ear.

“No,” I whisper, and push his boxers down. “I want you.”

He presses his body against mine, trapping his erection between us as he kisses my neck. “Are you sure? If you tell me to stop, I will.”

I push him backwards towards the bed, making us both stumble until we collapse together onto twisted bedsheets. My whole body sings in a language only we know, about which we still have so much to learn. I want to memorize every word.

I lean down and murmur against his lips, “Don’t you dare stop.”

His fingers tighten around my hips. “Yes, ma’am.”

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to Curator for spawning this idea and allowing me to run with it. I play fast and loose with ages/birthdates. Memory Beta puts Phoebe and Tom at seven years apart, but whatever. I do what I want. 
> 
> Also, there are a bunch of easter eggs for four songs from “folklore” by Taylor Swift, so there’s some extra fun for my fellow Swifties.


End file.
